


Cradled In The Hands Of Earth

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Off-World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers the explosion - sound, light, heat, pressure, all at once together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cradled In The Hands Of Earth

**Author's Note:**

> I believe this was for the SGA Last Fiction Writer Standing challenge, although I don't remember the prompt.

The clangour in his ears is the sound of silence, overlaid by the drumming of his heartbeat.

He has a heartbeat. That is good. It means he is alive. But for how long?

His breath comes short, not enough oxygen. Perhaps he is hyperventilating, like Rodney does when the man is scared or stressed. He tries to turn his head, to see his situation, but his muscles ache and sting, their unvoiced protest louder than the desire to move. Radek blinks up at the sky through the cracked refraction of his lenses and feels the cold slither of terror in his limbs.

They had thought the self-destruct on the ship disabled. Radek had checked it himself, a nagging guilt telling him he was behaving like Rodney, although the situations were hardly comparable. Harry Roland was new to Pegasus, made nervous by the possibilities of death and destruction, uncertain outside the lab, sloppy at his work when distracted.

He remembers the explosion - sound, light, heat, pressure, all at once together. It was like a blow to all his senses at once, and then the sensation of flying. But now he is cradled in the hand of the earth - at least, he thinks he might be. His body is at once both burning with fire and numb with ice, as though it is there and yet not.

Above him, the sky is blue, a pale, washed out eggshell-blue that stretches from periphery to periphery in Radek's field of vision; empty of clouds, empty of movement, but filled the crushing weight of an agoraphobia that has never touched him before.

His heart stutters with terror, a mere hiccup beneath the brazen peal that is all he can hear around him - no whistle of wind, no drag of leaf, no scrape of dust, no sound beyond his heartbeat, drumming through his veins.

Movement on the edge of his vision; his eyes swivel to see.

The angels of his childhood Christmases were pale and blonde, their faces pleasant and vacuous. Teyla is a stark outline against the empty sky, her skin as bronze as a sculpted Athena, her expression harsh with concern as she stumbles down the rubble-rim.

No wings, perhaps, but still a deliverer for Radek’s need.

Her lips move and her hand touches her earpiece, but he can’t hear her voice, can’t make out her words. In his head there’s only the clamour and blare of soundless noise.

Radek reaches up as Teyla kneels down. His body screams with the pain of movement as his hand lifts to try to connect. And her hand catches his, cool fingers against hot skin, the calming touch that tells him this is real - his eyes have not conjured her up.

Help is on the way.

She waits with him for the medics to arrive, her hand in his, her lips moving in reassurances that Radek doesn’t hear and, now, doesn’t need to.


End file.
